Connecting A Few Dots

Hey, it’s Friday!

Did you know it is also National Donut Day?

Yeah, I didn’t want or need to know that, either.

Particularly now that I am on a NO Sugar/Sweets plan until I reach my target weight again. Sigh. I do love a good donut.

Regardless, let’s talk about a few other round objects called dots, and how I might connect a few of them for you.

There are several items I have suggested or said I would be following up on in future articles. And I will. But for today, I simply want to discuss how a few of these concepts fit together.

A Place for a Monk

First, let’s return to resonance of place.

I am back in the PNW, and I am noticing that I am slipping back into Monk Mode. I tend to do that when I return here.

My house is essentially a cabin in the woods in a semi-rural area. It’s quiet. It’s peaceful. It’s conducive to my Focus-boy tendencies.

I do want to write a full article on place soon, but for now I wanted to let you know that I am essentially in what I recently heard someone call a sanctuary. It’s a place where, if you want to, you can easily do what Cal Newport calls deep work.

Another author whose book I read would call this type of place a Valhalla. He used Aspen, Colorado, as an archetype—remote, wealthy, surrounded by beautiful nature, difficult to get to, often dealing with labor shortages because of the cost of living and demographics of the residents.

Why this matters is that simply being here has an effect on me, and I am trying to understand that effect at a deeper level than I ever have before.

This place moves me into Monk Mode.

I become intensely focused on my health and fitness, creating content, and improving habits that get in the way of my Yeahs.

At the same time, I am planning to get out and play in some cities and towns. I refer to this as the 7C’s Strategy. Pick 7 places and go to them regularly. Ideally, play open Mics there.

This creates an interesting tension.

When I am here, I don’t want to be bothered. I want uninterrupted time. I want as close to zero demands on my time as I can get. I want to focus, focus, focus.

I become almost hermit-like and even a bit anti-social.

This is one reason you have not yet heard what my next One Hit Wonder will be.

I am still getting my feet under me from re-entry into this place, adjusting to the daily rhythms, and, more importantly, making sure that before I declare another One Hit Wonder has begun, I am fully committed to achieving it.

You may have noticed that my commitment to walking 30,000 steps per day this summer was even a little vague.

I said I would do it “when I can.”

In passing, that sounds fine. But what exactly does “when I can” mean?

Your attorney would probably want to tighten the contract language before signing off on it.

Nevertheless, hang on. I will fully define “when I can,” and I will reveal the One Hit Wonder I am 100%+ committed to soon enough.

In the meantime, yes, I am well on my way to walking another 30,000 steps today.

Four days in a row.

Yeah, baby!

Time, Yeahs, and One Hit Wonders

There are three Other things I want to make sure are connected for you as you read these articles.

First, the reason to focus on achieving FIRE, practicing a bit of minimalism (Japanese Extreme or simply clearing out some clutter), and improving health and fitness is to develop time freedom.

In this blog, I want to share ideas on how to use these and other strategies to help you create more time freedom in your own life.

And why do I know you want time freedom?

Because you want to say Yes to your YEAHs.

That is the second connection I want to make.

As you develop time freedom—and particularly after you achieve it—the key is to put more Yeahs into your life.

As you do that, you are designing a lifestyle that gets you out onto your personal Highway to YEAH.

Which brings me to the third connection.

What I am doing right now is somewhat similar to the Big Rocks exercise Stephen Covey made famous.

I am going back to the basics of this whole project of getting out on the Highway to Yeah.

I am, at least mentally, wiping the slate clean.

Imagine I have an empty bucket.

That bucket represents my day.

The One Hit Wonders are the Big Rocks that go into the bucket first.

And I am 100%+ committed to doing them every single day until the habit is fully formed.

I started the first on March 17 with the commitment to write and post a blog article every day for one year.

I started the second on April 29 with the commitment to walk 15,000 steps per day until I reach my target weight.

Today, I am declaring my intention to keep that going for a full year as well.

That is why I have begun walking 30,000 steps per day this week.

The One Hit Wonder is actually maintaining a 15,000-step-per-day average for an entire year. The additional steps I am taking now help ensure I achieve that goal.

I started the third on May 29 when I refused to buy sweets or snacks for my road trip to Colorado.

I declared that I would only eat sweets for celebrations, such as birthdays, until I reach my target weight.

I added no alcohol on May 31.

But my real One Hit Wonder is reaching and sustaining my target weight for a year—and beyond.

I have struggled with this before, and I am now done.

Never going back again, as Lindsey Buckingham might put it.

In fairness, I gained the weight because of my injury and surgery, so that is perhaps a decent excuse.

But it is still an excuse.

Making excuses is a little like skidding off the road on the Highway to Yeah.

You want to avoid it.

And I already had the One Hit Wonder that was key to reaching my cross-over point, achieving FIRE, and getting back in shape.

That One Hit Wonder is my Zeroscaping process.

Yesterday I worked on my Zeroscaping spreadsheet for June.

I was a little behind because of the travel, but I caught up and then some.

I have twelve slots in that scorecard.

That is it.

Originally, three were metric goals and nine were process goals designed to help achieve the metrics.

As I was working on June’s sheet yesterday, I realized some of those slots were occupied by items that made me ask:

“Why is this listed here?”

So I wiped the slate clean.

Now I only have the One Hit Wonders listed. I have more slots, but they will Only be Filled when I have a New One Hit Wonder I am 100% committed to doing.

You see, I am rebuilding the bus as I drive it down the Highway to Yeah.

A lot of mixed metaphors today, but hopefully the dots are connecting.

It is one thing to have complete time freedom.

It is another thing entirely to fill that time with things that matter.

And I am taking time to address something that has always been an issue for me because it matters.

The issue is delusion about time.

Part of that is misunderstanding how long things actually take.

Part of it is believing that I have all the time in the world to do x, y, and z.

Actually, I don’t.

But complete time freedom can create the mirage that I do.

Do you see?

I hope this is landing and encouraging you to think about your own life and how you use the precious gift of time you have been given.

P.S.

Just for a giggle, I sat down today thinking I could knock this draft out in fifteen minutes.

One hour and fifteen minutes later…